


ain't no grave (gonna hold my body down)

by patrokla



Category: The Libertines
Genre: M/M, funeral-crasher au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From his vantage point behind a tree in Waterlow Park, watching his own funeral, Carl can’t help but feel that he should’ve expected this somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no grave (gonna hold my body down)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princegrantaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/gifts).



> The other bookend of the 'Carl crashes his own funeral' au, the present!libs version was written by princegrantaire and can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6058570
> 
> This gave me a fair bit of trouble, I'll be honest, but at least it's done? 
> 
> Warnings: lots of swearing.

In hindsight, Carl probably should’ve left a note that said ‘gone off to Basingstoke, be back Tuesday,' and then copied it and taped it all over the flat and on Peter’s hands and forehead.   
  
To be fair, at the time he’d been incredibly hungover, late for his train, and trying to find a clean-ish pair of trousers to replace the skirt he’d woken up wearing. Still, from his vantage point behind a tree in Waterlow Park, watching his own funeral, Carl can’t help but feel that he should’ve expected this somehow.  
  
—  
  
“Just so we’re clear, you want me to carry the shovel in my garden all the way to Waterlow Park, so I can use it to dig a grave for Carl?”  
  
Peter rolls his eyes heavenward while simultaneously sighing at John over the phone (a skill learned early in his youth, and one that’s come in very handy since he’s moved to London).   
  
“Yes, John, for the last time, we’re holding his funeral in Waterlow Park.” It’s the fourth time he’s explained this. Sometimes he thinks John acts obtuse on purpose.  
  
“You want me to carry a shovel, in the freezing cold, forty minutes to this park. So I can dig a hole in the freezing ground. For Carl.”  
  
“Yes, John, that is what I want you to do. Shall I write it down so you don’t forget it?”  
  
“No need,” John says, and his tone sounds both icy and resigned over the phone line. “Although I’d love to know why I’m in charge of this.”  
  
“Because I’ve got arrangements to make,” Peter says in what he hopes is a mysterious tone. Then he hangs up, before John can ask him again what the plan is. He’s fairly sure that John will come through. At least 50% sure.  
  
In the meantime, he’s got a funeral speech and poem to write, and an outfit to buy.  
  
—  
  
Gary has been an official member of the Libertines for all of three months. It says a lot about the band that this is the fifth time Peter Doherty has called him, sounding tearful.  
  
“Gary,” he’s saying, in between discreet sniffles, “Gary, it’s Carl.”  
  
It was Carl the last time, too.   
  
“Has he found a new girlfriend, then?” Gary asks sympathetically.   
  
“Has he?” Pete sounds alarmed. “Well, it’s not about that. It’s…Gary, Carl is dead.”  
  
“Dead?”  
  
“Yes. Gone to the great beyond. Kicked the bucket. Said farewell to the v-“  
  
Gary interrupts before Peter can think of any more euphemisms, mind racing.  
  
“Peter, what happened to him?”  
  
“He’s gone for a Bur- what? Oh, Gary, it’s terrible,” Peter says mournfully, “He’s been gone for over two days, and at first I had hope, y’know, but he didn’t call this morning and I just - I just knew.”  
  
“Hang on,” Gary says, “So how do you know he’s actually dead?”  
  
“Gary, it’s Carl! He wouldn’t just leave me with no warning and not call or leave a message on the forums or _something_. That’s not like him at all.”  
  
Personally, Gary thinks it is very much like him, especially when he’s gone on a bender or met a new girl, but he kindly doesn’t tell Peter that.   
  
“Anyway, I’m calling to tell you that the funeral is today, at two in Waterlow Park, and you should get there early to help John dig the grave.”  
  
Gary wonders, for a brief moment, if he should’ve turned down the offer to be the new drummer for this madcap band. But then again, this is bound to be much more interesting than whatever he was planning to do today…  
  
—  
  
John doesn’t dig a grave. Actually, he doesn’t even bring the shovel. He does bring a garden trowel, because he doesn’t want to face the full effect of Peter’s remonstrant gaze.   
  
Granted, that gaze is currently covered by an elaborate mourning veil made of black lace that’s hanging from the most ostentatious hat John’s ever seen.   
  
“The shopkeep said it came with a dress, but it wouldn’t fit me,” Peter says, looking lanky and solemn. The veil flutters a bit in a sudden breeze. Peter resembles a small tree with very dark leaves. And feathers.   
  
John has many questions and regrets about where he is in his life right now.   
  
“John, you’d best start digging if we want to get it six feet,” Peter says.  
  
John looks at him and tries to look like a man of steely resolve with an iron will.  
  
“John…Johnny boy,” Peter wheedles, “I’d do it myself but I don’t want to get dirt on me hat and all.”  
  
John’s not sure what the ‘and all’ of Peter’s statement was meant to indicate, given that underneath the massive hat Peter’s wearing jeans covered in permanent marker and a cheetah print blouse. He thinks about saying that dirt couldn’t possibly make the ensemble any worse, but he’s distracted by Peter suddenly bursting into tears, bringing his hands up to press the veil against his face.  
  
“He was so young,” Peter wails, and John looks around the park for - something else to focus on. Anything at all. A piece of rubbish to put in a bin, a stray dog, a forgotten picnic blanket.  
  
“All that beauty, lost forever,” Peter says, and reaches out a hand to clutch at John’s shoulder. John pats his hand awkwardly and maneuvres his way out from under Peter’s grasp.   
  
For lack of anything better to do, he crouches down and begins digging - which probably was Peter’s plan all along, because when he glances up at Peter during a pause in his dramatic pronouncements, John swears he catches a glimpse of a satisfied grin from behind the veil.  
  
—  
  
Carl’s standing behind a tree in Waterlow Park and he’s pretty sure he’s never been so mortified in his life (and yes, that’s counting the time with the chocolate and the lube and the dressing gown).   
  
“Dearly beloved,” Peter says to his audience, which consists of John, Gary, and a teenager who’s wandered over with what looks like a camera.  
  
“Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today to mourn the death of Carlos Barat, a fair shipmate on the Albion, a jewel of Arcadia, and possessor of the bluest eyes in England.”  
  
Carl stands behind the tree and wonders, not for the first time, when he should stop Peter. Really, the ideal time would’ve been before the whole thing had gotten started, but Gary hadn’t managed to get ahold of him until he’d gotten back to his and Peter’s flat, and by then Peter was already on his way to the park.   
  
“He’s convinced that you’re dead, Carl. You’ve got to break it to him gently, yeah?” Gary had said, and whilst Carl thinks that’s more than Peter really deserves, what with all this funeral nonsense, he can’t quite make himself step out and stop Peter.   
  
“Death, where is thy sting?” Peter proclaims, and very loudly to boot. On second thought, Carl’s ready to stop him now.   
  
It’s not until he’s a few feet from his hiding place that he remembers the cape.  
  
—  
  
Peter had prepared a good eulogy, he really had. There’d been stuff about Arcadia, and how he’d always think of Carl when the violets bloomed because of the time Carl’d stole a bouquet of them from some twat in a suit and given them to Peter, and he’d even written a poem for the occasion, a grand one.  
  
And then he’d looked, actually looked at the two people in front of him, and the one person loitering to the side, and a fourth person sort of lurking behind an oak tree, and he realizes he’d completely forgotten to call anyone but John and Gary to invite them to the funeral.  
  
It jars him so completely that the rest of the eulogy flies out of his head, and he’s left grasping for Bible verses someone had read at his great-aunt’s funeral a few years ago.  
  
“Oh grave,” he says solemnly, and then stops for a second, trying to remember the next bit. He glances down at the frankly pathetic and insulting grave that John had dug with the garden trowel, where a rather ragged old shirt of Carl’s is lying, underneath an equally ragged violet.  
  
(“It’s symbolic,” Peter had hissed at Gary, who snickered again. “It’s not weird, it’s symbolic.”)  
  
“Oh grave,” he says again, and he’s thinking about just going for a Dickinson poem when the lurker behind the tree emerges, and Peter can’t stop the “Fucking hell” that slips out of his mouth.  
  
It’s Carl’s ghost.   
  
—  
  
The cape was supposed to be a gift for Peter, actually, before Carl had arrived home to the news that he’d apparently died. Then, he’d looked at the frankly impressive dark faux-velvet cape in his bag and decided it could have a better use.   
  
It’s as he’s striding towards Peter, looking hopefully annoyed and intimidating, that he catches sight of the cape fluttering around him. It’s dramatic, and _fantastic_ , Carl decides. It’s the perfect touch.   
  
Perhaps a bit too perfect, as it turns out, because as soon as Peter catches sight of Carl, he turns pale and his eyes widen to an absurd size.  
  
“Fucking hell,” Peter shrieks at him, and then all hell breaks loose.   
  
—  
  
Later, neither Peter nor Carl are particularly clear on why things went the way they did. Gary spends a fair few hours trying to pry some sense out of them afterwards, and plying them with drinks to help smooth the process.  
  
By the end of the night, which is really less ‘night’ and more ‘five o’clock the next morning’, he’s manages to piece together a version of the truth, which goes something like this:  
  
Peter had assumed, when he saw Carl stalking towards him looking ‘a bit mad’, that it was Carl’s ghost come back to wreak revenge for the terrible attendance at his funeral.   
  
He’d reacted quite logically by sprinting towards Carl to - fight him? tackle him? something else entirely that made Carl hit Gary when he suggested it?  
  
Whatever Peter’s planned course of action, what actually ended up happening was that Carl saw Peter legging it towards him and reacted ‘like any man would, yeah?’  
  
“You absolute bastard,” Peter had howled, as he’d doubled over to protect his now very sore bits.   
  
Carl, who’d still been on the attack and ‘a bit muddled’, had taken the opportunity to try and punch Peter in the eye, which had turned into the two of them rolling around in the grass hitting and scratching at any bit of the other one that they could get at.   
  
Gary had finally gone in to try and break it up after sharing a look with John, who'd appeared as untouchable and disapproving as usual.  
  
He hadn’t managed to actually separate them, but Carl straddling Peter’s waist and neither of them trying to enact violence on the other was about as good as he expected it to get.  
  
“You’re pretty solid for a ghost,” Peter had said, eying Carl. “Suspiciously solid, one might say.”  
  
“Yeah, I wonder why that might be,” Carl had said, rolling his eyes at Peter.   
  
“You idiot,” he'd added for good measure, and brushed a bit of grass off of Peter’s forehead to lessen any sting.   
  
“S’nice cape, though,” Peter had said approvingly, reaching out a hand to feel the fabric. “Very dramatic.”  
  
“I thought it was appropriate,” Carl had said, a bit smugly. “I liked your…hat thing, whatever it was.”  
  
“Oh shit, yeah, where did that go?”   
  
“Never mind that, why the fuck did you think I’d died? I told you I was only going to Basingstoke to visit my mum, you nutter. I was only gone for a few days!”  
  
“Yeah well, you didn’t call,” Peter had said, sulkily. “Or send a postcard or nothing. I thought you’d - Well, I didn’t think you’d ignore me. I’m your best mate, right?”  
  
“Peter, we sleep on the same mattress, what else would you be? I was busy with family things, and I tried calling but you never have the mobile on. I figured you’d dropped it in cement or something again. Christ, you gave me a scare…”  
  
“ _I_ gave _you_ a scare? Carlos Barat,” Peter had said, wriggling out from under Carl to lean up on his elbows, “I’m fairly sure none of this is at all my fault.”  
  
And Peter had raised his eyebrows, and Carl had raised his, and then Peter leaned up a bit more to brush his nose against Carl’s, and then Gary had turned to John and said Friday would be a good night to practice, wouldn’t it? Or maybe even right now, since Peter and Carl were a bit busy.  
  
“We’re not terribly busy,” Carl had said, and Peter’d made a sort of annoyed noise at that.  
  
“Yeah, alright,” Gary had said, risking a glance over his shoulder as he and John walked away. “Don’t get arrested, boys!”  
  
  


 

**April 2016**  
  
Carl wakes up to seven missed calls, 98 Twitter notifications, and a single text from Peter that says good old days xx’ followed by a link.   
  
He taps on it, feeling a certain amount of trepidation.   
  
“Dearly beloved,” a small, grainy, very young Peter says on the phone screen.  
  
He's standing in front of a tiny hole in the ground, with Gary and John on the other side of it, in what looks like Waterlow Park.  
  
“Oh no,” Carl says. “Oh no."

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, Waterlow Park was chosen purely bc it sounds like 'Waterloo.' Peter would've held the funeral at Waterloo Station but he figured it'd be too hard to dig a grave in the flooring.


End file.
